Monza F3: Vesti beats Pourchaire in first race thriller

A five-place grid penalty for impeding in qualifying cost Pourchaire – one of nine drivers to be penalised - his maiden pole position and dropped him to sixth place on the grid.

He made a quick getaway to move into third place at the end of the opening lap and that became second place when he passed Jenzer Motorsport’s Matteo Nannini into the first chicane on the second lap.

Nannini – nephew of 1989 Japanese Grand Prix winner Alessandro - attempted to pass polesitter Liam Lawson at Turn 1 on the opening lap but the Red Bull junior hopped over the kerbs and held onto the lead.

Pourchaire then passed Lawson on lap four to claim the lead, and HWA Racelab’s Jake Hughes further demoted Lawson to third place a couple of laps later.

Lawson then made contact with Nannini at the first chicane with the latter retiring with damage. Lawson’s pace dropped and reigning Formula Regional European champion Vesti passed him for third place.

Vesti was running into a distant third place but the gap to the leaders Pourchaire and Hughes was reduced when the safety car was required to cover Pourchaire’s ART Grand Prix team-mate Sebastian Fernandez on the exit of the Ascari chicane.

26-year-old Hughes was passed by Vesti on the restart and the Prema driver wrestled the lead from long-time race leader Pourchaire into Turn 1 with just three laps to go.

Vesti took the chequered flag to earn his second victory of the season, eight-tenths ahead of 17-year-old Frenchman Pourchaire.

The Dane's teammate Oscar Piastri capitulated his way from 15th on the grid to take the final place on the podium and the championship lead after a woeful race for ex-points leader Logan Sargeant.

Sargeant dropped from fifth on the grid into the battle for ninth place with Piastri before a tap from Carlin’s Clement Novalak dropped him to 26th position.

Trident’s David Beckmann maintained his points-finishing streak in fourth place with Hughes and Lawson completing the top six.

His teammate Lirim Zendeli – the winner of the first race at Spa – took seventh place ahead of Bent Viscaal (MP Motorsport) and Enzo Fittipaldi (HWA Racelab).

Charouz Racing System’s Michael Belov nicked the final point and reverse-grid pole position in only his second weekend racing in FIA F3.

Race results:

Cla	#	Driver	Team	Gap
1	2	Frederik Vesti	Prema Powerteam
2	7	Theo Pourchaire	ART Grand Prix	0.899
3	1	Oscar Piastri	Prema Powerteam	5.470
4	11	David Beckmann	Trident	6.124
5	15	Jake Hughes	HWA AG	7.419
6	5	Liam Lawson	HitechGP	7.984
7	10	Lirim Zendeli	Trident	8.692
8	18	Bent Viscaal	MP Motorsport	9.232
9	14	Enzo Fittipaldi	HWA AG	12.192
10	25	Michael Belov	Charouz Racing System	15.441
11	23	Roman Staněk	Charouz Racing System	15.755
12	16	Jack Doohan	HWA AG	16.862
13	6	Dennis Hauger	HitechGP	17.290
14	26	Clement Novalak	Carlin	18.455
15	19	Lukas Dunner	MP Motorsport	19.185
16	28	Cameron Das	Carlin	20.283
17	29	Alexander Peroni	Campos Racing	21.026
18	4	Pierre-Louis Chovet	HitechGP	21.922
19	27	David Schumacher	Carlin	27.277
20	8	Alexander Smolyar	ART Grand Prix	28.375
21	31	Sophia Flörsch	Campos Racing	28.393
22	21	Federico Malvestiti	Jenzer Motorsport	29.057
23	30	Alessio Deledda	Campos Racing	29.434
24	24	Igor Fraga	Charouz Racing System	34.067
25	20	Calan Williams	Jenzer Motorsport	34.500
26	3	Logan Sargeant	Prema Powerteam	38.847
27	17	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport	46.678
	9	Sebastian Fernandez	ART Grand Prix
	12	Olli Caldwell	Trident
	22	Matteo Nannini	Jenzer Motorsport
View full results